Im not new to this, so where am I going wrong?

Mouse_Potato

You may want to recheck your exercise numbers. On Monday you logged 30 minutes on the elliptical as 430 calories burned. I am bigger than you are and I can't think of any activity I can sustain for 30 minutes straight that would give me that many calories. I would have to flat out run at about 9 mph to get that kind of burn. Which would kill me. :laugh:

Makoce

Its been a week since I lowered it to 1240.
So, I should probably wait a little longer then before switching up my body again right?

And the reason its my line is because I was always lead to believe eating under that was unhealthy and bad for your metabolism.
I know Im short, but I wasnt sure if that mattered.
I doubt I could manage to eat lower than that without having a binge attack anyway from such small amount of food! Hahaha!

Eat at maintenance for your goal weight for a couple of weeks at least. The biggest thing right now is to avoid binging and see how the higher calories of maintenance feel. I do believe that it will signal your metabolism that it doesn't need to slow down anymore from dieting, but there are good psychological reasons to do it in any case.

Don't worry about the last few pounds right now. Add in some body-shaping exercise if you still want to see body changes, and let the food part be more normal. You (and your metabolism) might just be burned out from dieting, and cutting calories more will definitely increase the risk of binging, yes!

2 weeks of maintenance isn't going to hurt anything except an arbitrary goal date. It's a lifestyle Go on to maintenance for at least a bit.

All this "your metabolism is going to slow down!" fearmongering is baseless. Your body isn't a Swiss watch. 200 calories plus or minus isn't going to magically ruin your metabolism and make you gain weight from particles in the air. I cannot believe the amount of panic people feel about "ruining your metabolism". That's actually really hard to do.

I didn't say 'ruin', and there are no magical air particles, no. However, study after study confirm that metabolism adapts to low-calorie diets. We're lucky it does, or we probably would have died out by now.

If you understood where metabolism fit into the energy equation, you would see that nothing is pulled from the air.

You sound like your metabolism has not had this effect, and that's great. There are individual differences, and time on a diet is definitely a factor. But if you are trying to assert as fact that there is never a metabolism change after a change of caloric intake, you need to explain the studies, then, imho.

If the metabolism "adjusts", that effect isn't extremely dramatic. And do please cite these studies you speak of, for those of us who wish to read more about this. The bottom line is, you're not going to fine-tune your metabolism by eating 100 more or fewer calories on a day-to-day basis. What you WILL do is increase of decrease your calorie deficit, which depending on your goals, is what you want to do. The "eat more to lose weight" mantra people like to champion around here sounds more like active sabotage to me than anything else.

OP, try eating at 1300-1350 calories TOTAL (not eating back exercise) for a couple of weeks, and see if that gets you back on track. And maybe go easy on the exercise too, if you want. Exercise isn't really for weight loss so much as it it's for fitness/health. Since you want to lose weight, try focusing on that for a couple of weeks and go back to the exercise once you're losing steadily again. Whatever you do, don't let anyone talk you into eating 2000 calories a day or try to make you worry about your metabolism. Your metabolism is going to be just fine, unless you do really drastic and clearly ill-advised things (like taking drugs, not eating for weeks on end, etc.)

Honestly I was only exercising so much to eat more.

Makoce

You may want to recheck your exercise numbers. On Monday you logged 30 minutes on the elliptical as 430 calories burned. I am bigger than you are and I can't think of any activity I can sustain for 30 minutes straight that would give me that many calories. I would have to flat out run at about 9 mph to get that kind of burn. Which would kill me. :laugh:

I was going off the machine.
I set my machine 10lbs less than i weigh and underestimate those.
obviously its still too much

i think exercise is the issue here. if i want to eat back calories i gotta do a lot more work

Mouse_Potato

You may want to recheck your exercise numbers. On Monday you logged 30 minutes on the elliptical as 430 calories burned. I am bigger than you are and I can't think of any activity I can sustain for 30 minutes straight that would give me that many calories. I would have to flat out run at about 9 mph to get that kind of burn. Which would kill me. :laugh:

I was going off the machine.
I set my machine 10lbs less than i weigh and underestimate those.
obviously its still too much

i think exercise is the issue here. if i want to eat back calories i gotta do a lot more work

I have heard those machines are notoriously inaccurate. Unfortunately. I use a BodyMedia, so I eat what it tells me to regardless of what the treadmill says.

Siansonea

Its been a week since I lowered it to 1240.
So, I should probably wait a little longer then before switching up my body again right?

And the reason its my line is because I was always lead to believe eating under that was unhealthy and bad for your metabolism.
I know Im short, but I wasnt sure if that mattered.
I doubt I could manage to eat lower than that without having a binge attack anyway from such small amount of food! Hahaha!

Eat at maintenance for your goal weight for a couple of weeks at least. The biggest thing right now is to avoid binging and see how the higher calories of maintenance feel. I do believe that it will signal your metabolism that it doesn't need to slow down anymore from dieting, but there are good psychological reasons to do it in any case.

Don't worry about the last few pounds right now. Add in some body-shaping exercise if you still want to see body changes, and let the food part be more normal. You (and your metabolism) might just be burned out from dieting, and cutting calories more will definitely increase the risk of binging, yes!

2 weeks of maintenance isn't going to hurt anything except an arbitrary goal date. It's a lifestyle Go on to maintenance for at least a bit.

All this "your metabolism is going to slow down!" fearmongering is baseless. Your body isn't a Swiss watch. 200 calories plus or minus isn't going to magically ruin your metabolism and make you gain weight from particles in the air. I cannot believe the amount of panic people feel about "ruining your metabolism". That's actually really hard to do.

I didn't say 'ruin', and there are no magical air particles, no. However, study after study confirm that metabolism adapts to low-calorie diets. We're lucky it does, or we probably would have died out by now.

If you understood where metabolism fit into the energy equation, you would see that nothing is pulled from the air.

You sound like your metabolism has not had this effect, and that's great. There are individual differences, and time on a diet is definitely a factor. But if you are trying to assert as fact that there is never a metabolism change after a change of caloric intake, you need to explain the studies, then, imho.

If the metabolism "adjusts", that effect isn't extremely dramatic. And do please cite these studies you speak of, for those of us who wish to read more about this. The bottom line is, you're not going to fine-tune your metabolism by eating 100 more or fewer calories on a day-to-day basis. What you WILL do is increase of decrease your calorie deficit, which depending on your goals, is what you want to do. The "eat more to lose weight" mantra people like to champion around here sounds more like active sabotage to me than anything else.

OP, try eating at 1300-1350 calories TOTAL (not eating back exercise) for a couple of weeks, and see if that gets you back on track. And maybe go easy on the exercise too, if you want. Exercise isn't really for weight loss so much as it it's for fitness/health. Since you want to lose weight, try focusing on that for a couple of weeks and go back to the exercise once you're losing steadily again. Whatever you do, don't let anyone talk you into eating 2000 calories a day or try to make you worry about your metabolism. Your metabolism is going to be just fine, unless you do really drastic and clearly ill-advised things (like taking drugs, not eating for weeks on end, etc.)

Honestly I was only exercising so much to eat more.

I think that's the reason a lot of people exercise as much as they do—and why they get on the wrong side of the math when their estimates start to really cut into the already narrow margin your calorie deficit is supposed to be. You want to develop good lifelong habits, right? Well, part of that is going to be getting really honest with yourself about what you're eating and how much benefit your exercise is really having. Exercise shouldn't be used as a "snack generator", because all that does is lead to the natural tendency to overestimate the calories burned, and set up a "reward" system whereby you then eat all those calories back, and then some. That's why I skipped exercise altogether when I decided to start losing weight. I don't like exercise, and realistically, I'm not going to suddenly do a complete reversal of personality and become an exercise fanatic. It seems like a LOT of work to burn 200 calories on a treadmill or whatever, for very little reward. I'd rather just be disciplined about my calorie counts, and manage my hunger in other ways. Eating plenty of protein, fat and fiber keeps me satisfied, as does allowing myself to eat fast food. I also don't keep snacks in my house, except for 100 calorie packs of popcorn and other snacks that aren't terribly tempting. I do all my willpower at the grocery store—so I don't have to do it every evening when I'm in my jammies. :bigsmile:

cwolfman13

And do please cite these studies you speak of, for those of us who wish to read more about this.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23535105

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11430776

these are just a couple...and google is your friend. if you actually cared to know you would do your own research rather than just spouting off that it doesn't exist all of the time. Also, you do realize that "eat more to lose" is largely in reference to dietary adherence right? You still eat at a deficit...'cuz you know...science and stuff.

MelissaPhippsFeagins

Thanks. I definitely like how you listed that out.

As far as why my meals are so small. I suppose it's because I'm trying to not go over at night when I binge. I'm basically trying to save the calories.

Staying full doesn't matter as I shove food into myself even if I am full.

It's really upsetting. But in going to lower my goal and try to stick it out.
This way at least I can get it done faster and be able to up to maintenance.

If that dog in your photo is anything like the one in my living room floor right now, it is your best defense against bingeing. I say this as a recovering binge eater. Eat your meals and make them good ones. When the urge to binge strikes, put that puppy on a leash and walk away from the food. Stay gone at least 15 minutes, but as long as you and the dog want to go is fine. By the time you come back, you will have realized that you didn't really need or want to eat and some endorphins will have kicked in to make you feel better. Save 100 or so calories for after your walk, just in case you need a handful of nuts or a glass of milk because you are actually a little hungry when you get back. Some days I eat those calories and some days I don't.

Good luck and don't quit!!!

Siansonea

The dogwalking advice is good! :drinker:

I don't like nuts as a snack though. They're too "dense". One reason I like popcorn as a snack is because for 100 calories, I get to eat for a longer period of time, and it's a large volume of food. It's mostly air, but psychologically it feels like I've eaten quite a bit. :bigsmile:

Makoce

I walk / train dogs for a living, theres no absence of that :B

geekyjock76

-You're likely overestimating exercise expenditure, thus eating "back" too much.
-If you are underestimating food you weigh vs measure, then you are eating too much (especially exercise calories).
-If you are binging once or twice a week, you are likely eating more than you think considering the above. I don't know many binge eaters who take the time to weigh the food they're about to eat.

If you factor all the above, you can easily be eating at maintenance.

cwolfman13

Also OP...when you have a really small deficit it can be pretty tricky...there just isn't a whole lot of room for error. 1/2 Lb per week is only 250 calories...very easy to underestimate intake by that much. I think you'll do fine in maintenance so long as you continue to eat right and get some exercise. The body is always striving to maintain...it takes a lot of consistent undereating or overeating to override you bodies ability to maintain a healthy weight.

MelissaPhippsFeagins

I walk / train dogs for a living, theres no absence of that :B

Okay, so you walk them for a living...i would still find a game to play with them at night that kept me from eating. Tug of war or fetch or something. The point isn't the exercise; it's distracting yourself from the food.

Makoce

Thanks everyone! Youve re-motivated me!

Siansonea

Thanks everyone! Youve re-motivated me!

Yay! Keep on goin', you got this! :drinker: